


General Incivility

by Roehrborn



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Ed and Oswald like making a scene of themselves, Fluff, Frottage, Future Fic, Jealousy, Love, M/M, Murder, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 08:30:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12790701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roehrborn/pseuds/Roehrborn
Summary: Murder, frottage, and a sequined show-stopper: it’s just another night at the Iceberg Lounge.





	General Incivility

**Author's Note:**

> Just for fun. Thanks so much to the wonderful Flux for betaing this!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!  
> ~R

It’s just another night at the Iceberg Lounge.

The Penguin is seated on the balcony, a table for two occupied by the single, lonely soul. _Poor little man_ , the whisperers say, hiding titters behind their gloved palms, _all that money and_ still _no one wants him_.

The Penguin waves an idle hand and his server rushes forward with another bottle of red. Penguin gives a dismissive gesture: _leave the bottle_ , and the young man does so, beating a hasty retreat.

The Iceberg Lounge is a little like a fishbowl. The Penguin’s sharp gaze travels over the guests, missing nothing, learning much. He watches alliances being formed, friendships tested, romances destroyed. One particularly irate customer throws his drink in the face of another and storms out. Just another night at the Iceberg.

The fact that the Penguin’s eyes are drawn toward one guest in particular should not signify.

To be certain, the Riddler cuts quite the inescapable figure: his sequined coat jacket and bowler hat, his truly impressive golden question mark staff—it would be difficult _not_ to look at him; and the Penguin doesn’t try.

Which is why, a few minutes later, he notices a man approach the Riddler, proffered drink in hand. It’s a whisky on the rocks, and Penguin smirks as the Riddler turns up his nose and turns away. But the man course-corrects, calling over the bartender and allowing Riddler to order.

A grasshopper. Penguin rolls his eyes. The Riddler is lucky his staff is impeccably well-trained.

It is _not_ his imagination that the Riddler glances up to meet his eyes when he takes the first sip.

The man sidles closer to the Riddler, and the Riddler leans back against the bar counter, elongating his frame, displaying the lithe build of his limbs. He perches his chin on one propped up fist, watching the man beside him with apparent undivided attention. The Penguin’s lip twists; his hand around his wineglass tightens until he thinks it might crack, and then he releases it, abruptly.

This will be borne.

Even when the Riddler allows the man to put a hand on his forearm with no more reaction than a curious little glance. Even when the man’s hand _stays_ there, far longer than politeness dictates.

It’s when his hand moves to the Riddler’s knee that the Penguin rises to his feet, hot fury boiling in his blood. Moving like a wildcat from the shadows, Victor Zsasz is beside him suddenly, but the Penguin waves him away with one hand.

Rage like this can only be tempered one way.

Few notice him descend the stairs from the balcony, but those that _do_ are instantly on tenterhooks, waiting with barely-suppressed anticipation for the inevitable eruption.

After all, _everyone_ knows that the Penguin is still in love with the Riddler. Whether these affections are returned or _not_ is less certain, but no one doubts that the showdown will be _magnificent_.

The man seems to notice something is awry as the Penguin approaches; he draws back slightly, leaning against the bar counter and glancing between the Riddler and the Penguin. The Riddler just smirks down at the club’s proprietor, leaning a little harder against the counter, jutting his hip out a little further.

A little hush falls over the crowd around them as the Penguin finally reaches their side.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” the Penguin says, and the shark-grin on his lips is not the slightest bit welcoming.

“Uh, good evening,” says the man. His hand moves to his thigh, as if to wipe sweat from his palm. There’s not much that compares to being on the receiving end of _that_ smile.

“Oh, _Oswald_ ,” the Riddler drawls. “Honestly.”

The man’s eyes flicker to the Riddler, assessing.

“ _Honestly_ ,” the Penguin bites out, mockingly. The silence spreads a little farther into the crowd, anticipation and mild fear infecting the club fervor and reducing it to a murmur. The music even seems to grow quieter.

“Aren’t you _busy_ tonight?” Riddler continues, bringing his hand up and examining his fingernails with an air of disinterested nonchalance. “Certainly too busy to deal with little old _me_.”

The Penguin rolls his eyes so demonstratively that it’s visible several yards away. “You just _have_ to be the center of attention, don’t you, Ed?”

“I accept nothing less,” the Riddler says, baring his teeth in a grin.

“Listen,” the man cuts in. Apparently he has decided that the vaguely contentious air bodes well for him.

This assumption is not correct.

The Penguin’s knife goes clean through the man’s eyeball and eye socket, hitting his forebrain with impeccable accuracy and rendering him brain dead in moments. His body takes a little longer to follow, but follow it does, collapsing to its knees at the Penguin’s feet, then falling forward, its skull impacting the marble floor with an unnerving _thunk_.

“I thought we agreed,” Riddler says, mock-frown on his lips.

Penguin looks up and eyes him narrowly. The crowd watches as one, with bated breath, as Penguin slowly wipes the blood from his face with the back of his hand, before quickly reaching out and grabbing the Riddler by the collar.

All is silent in the Iceberg Lounge as the Penguin drags the Riddler’s mouth to his.

All is silent as the Riddler leans in, resting his hands on the Penguin’s shoulders.

All is silent as the Penguin wraps his arms around the Riddler’s waist.

When they break apart, Penguin murmurs to Riddler, soft but deafening in the utter silence of the club: “That was before you made an absolute _scene_ of yourself. You were tempting me, you— _strumpet_.”

“Maybe,” the Riddler admits, voice coy and coquettish.

“And now that our clever little _plot_ is ruined…” the Penguin trails off, his hand around the Riddler’s waist slipping lower until he cups one of the taller man’s buttcheeks, tugging him forward in and against the Penguin. The move would not be out of place on a dance floor, but isolated as they are in the middle of the Iceberg Lounge, it incites several gasps. “…shall I take you somewhere a little more _private_?” the Penguin finishes, punctuating his sentence with another forceful tug, practically _frotting_ the taller man.

“Please,” the Riddler says, high and breathy, and that seems to call for the end to their little scene; the Penguin pulls away abruptly and tugs the Riddler toward the back exit of the Lounge, the one that leads (as _everyone_ knows) to the private suites. The door swings shut behind them, and all is silent.

Then the music picks up again, and the waiters and the bartenders start gently ushering the crowd back out, and eventually the flurry of noise and drink washes over the crowd, erasing the earlier stunned stupor.

After all, it’s just another night at the Iceberg Lounge.


End file.
